(Feature photo by Joshua Chun on Unsplash) An excerpt from Tokyo Tales: A Collection of Japanese Short Stories By Renae Lucas-Hall ‘I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve been working part-time for a fashion shop in Yokohama for two years but now I’d really like to work for My Cute Kawaii Boutique,’ I told Junko, More…
Convenience Store Woman was originally published as Conbini ningen (Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo, 2016) Ginny Tapley Takemori talks with Books on Asia about translating “Convenience Store Woman,” for the English audience Books on Asia: Convenience Store Woman challenges us to reconsider how we should define a “normal person” in modern society and prods us to accept More…
By Amy Chavez So many books are published each year about someone’s year abroad in Japan that it has fostered its own genre called the “My Year in Japan” novel. Basically, a Westerner spends a year here (Japan), returns to their home country, and writes a book about this “weird country” that proceeds to get More…
The History of Comics and the Graphic Novel What are comic books (manga) and graphic novels? They are the combination of images and text. Essentially that’s it. What, on theoretical grounds, would place an age or sophistication limit on something that combines image and text? Are, for example, road signs – which are normally a More…
Known to most as the author of Lost Japan, Dogs and Demons and, more recently, Another Kyoto, Alex Kerr came of age in 1970s Japan, a golden era when he hung around with other notable foreign residents such as antique dealer David Kidd, curator Alexandra Munroe and Zen abbot John Toler. Alex took time More…
Your guide to finding quality books
on Japan and Asia
